KNOXVILLE, Ill. — Carbon Capture company Navigator CO2 Ventures is looking to build a 1,300-mile carbon pipeline that would run underneath 5 Midwest states, including Iowa and Illinois.
Farmers and landowners in Knox County were given the chance to talk with Navigator employees Jan. 11 at an open house at the local American Legion post.
John Feltham, who owns about 220 acres of land in Williamsburg, Illinois, just past Galesburg, worries the pipeline could permanently ruin his land. He's a fourth-generation farmer that has had the land in his family for over 100 years.
His farm falls in the line of the proposed Heartland Greenway Pipeline Project. The pipe will go at least five feet underground, transferring carbon dioxide to a facility in central Illinois to be stored at least a mile underground.
"What may look like bare dirt to the average person is essentially gold to a farmer," Feltham said. "My concern is a seven-foot-deep pipeline. I mean, no matter how good the restoration after the construction, the soil is never the same, and tiles, once broken, are never the same."
Navigator CO2 Ventures Public Relations Representative Elizabeth Burns-Thompson said the company wants to answer any and all questions for land owners early on in the process.
"It's a two-way conversation. We're gathering information as much as we're sharing," Burns-Thompson said. "I know that there's a lot of questions about 'what is carbon capture and storage?' 'What is the Heartland Greenway intending to do?' 'What are the benefits?'"
She said those benefits include eliminating emissions from approximately 3.2 million cars every year. You can also compare it to eliminating the entire carbon footprint of the Des Moines metro area three times over, according to project coordinators.
Feltham said he cares plenty about the environment, but also, it's a matter of how much the project could impact both his and hundreds of other landowners livelihoods.
"Farmers in general, when it comes to preserving the soil and controlling erosion, you could probably say farmers are some of the most aggressive tree-hugging environmentalist that you could find because if you lose your topsoil, you lose your means of productivity," Feltham said. "I am concerned about the environment, but if a pipeline comes across this farm, then I want to make sure I do everything I can to preserve that soil."
Burns-Thompson said the company has a plan to help combat that issue, making sure the land under the pipeline is as productive and profitable as possible. On top of that, it's willing to offer compensation for lost crops due to the project.
"Crop losses are necessarily part of pipeline construction. We are providing upfront 240% of yield, acknowledging that landowners, we believe, shouldn't see losses to that level. But we as a company are responsible for making landowners whole," Burns-Thompson said.
Additional financial compensation for the land will also be given to farmers. Feltham and other farmers are left to weigh the options.
News 8 initially reported on the pipeline project back in December. A Heartland Greenway presentation was given in Clinton County, Iowa, then for farmers set to be impacted there.
The company will be making stops in all counties the project will run through if it moves forward.
The next step involves seeking state and federal approval to conduct land and environmental surveys. Heartland Greenway hopes to start construction at the beginning of 2024 if everything goes according to plan.